The life and times of John Wilson of Graythwaite

John Wilson (c. 1752–1812) is one of the more remarkable people in our county’s history. He is also one of the more elusive. A self-taught mathematical genius and musician who lived near Hawkshead, he garnered local interest in the decades after his death.

Since then, though, he has lapsed from memory. As far as I’m aware, no recent history has even noted his existence.

The earliest record of Wilson’s life appears in the parish register of St Michael’s Church, in Hawkshead. He was baptised there in 1773. The entry in the register is a bit ambiguous. It reads: John Wilson Mr Willm Ralinson Black of Graythwte.

Thankfully, sources like James Stockdale’s Annals of Cartmel explain that Wilson was the servant of William Rawlinson (1740–1808), of Graythwaite Hall. Having a black servant was a status symbol in the 1700s, and Rawlinson was far from the only local gentleman who did.

Graythwaite Hall and part of the estate, where John Wilson lived Stockdale referred to Wilson as ‘Black Jack of Graythwaite’, and he was clearly interested in him as an example of someone who had come to Cumbria from afar. Frustratingly, though, he doesn’t tell us where Wilson was from. He simply relates that Rawlinson received Wilson as a present from his cousin Abraham Rawlinson, of Lancaster.

Now, I haven’t found definitive proof that was the case. It’s perfectly plausible, however. Abraham Rawlinson was a merchant who invested in colonial trades, including the transatlantic slave trade. So, it’s certainly possible that Wilson had been born or sold into slavery. Many of the black men and women who lived in Cumbria in the 1700s had been. Even so, Wilson’s origins remain a mystery.

An article from an old issue of the Kendal Times contends Wilson came from Santo Domingo. Another from the Kendal Mercury calls him “a true son of Africa” who had been taken “from the sultry shores of Guinea”.

Both those claims seem like little more than speculation, though. They’re not supported by any explanation or evidence, and, although they can’t be dismissed, they should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt.

But what our sources lack in terms of information about Wilson’s early years, they make up for in terms of detail about his later life.

Stockdale, for one, informs us that Wilson “was a great favourite” of the Rawlinson family. Other accounts support that assertion. Some of those accounts also explain that, while living at Graythwaite, Wilson taught himself music and mathematics in his spare time. For example, in the Kendal Mercury we read that Wilson:

showed the most extraordinary capacity for mathematical studies, in which he made wonderful progress, solving the most abstruse problems without any seeming difficulty. In music too he was wonderfully proficient, and could, from flutes made by another fellow servant, draw the most bewitching melody.

Wilson’s talents earned him the respect and admiration of local people. In the years that followed, though, he suffered a fall from grace. We are told that he was dismissed from the Rawlinson’s household after having a child out of wedlock with another servant. Here’s Stockdale’s account of the affair:

James Clarke's map of Windermere from 1787 showing the site of Graythwaite woods and the Rawlinson family's property Mr. Rawlinson, who was a strictly moral man, and his wife quite as much, or perhaps more so, could not quite forgive Jack for this breach of all propriety; so he compelled Jack to marry the woman. He would no longer allow him to live in the house, but built him and his wife a hut or cottage in the thickest part of Graythwaite Woods, and afterwards Jack and his wife used to grow vegetables, and sell them every market day in the market at Hawkshead, where I myself, when at Hawkshead School, about 1806, have seen them.

True to this account, Wilson does seem to have married a local woman named Sarah Robinson (c. 1768–1807) and the couple settled locally. In total, they appear to have had five children. None of those children, however, survived to adulthood. That was evidently a source of great sorrow for Wilson and some sources credit it with having shortened his life.

While his children were alive, though, Wilson does appear to have provided for his family by working as a gardener. That’s the occupation listed beside his name in several entries in St Michael’s parish register.

And where did he keep his garden, you ask? To be honest, I’m not sure. An old article in the Westmorland Gazette states that Wilson lived at Hullet Hall, which sits on the western shore of Windermere, but that spots not really “in the thickest part of Graythwaite Woods”, which is where Stockdale claimed Wilson and Sarah lived.

Various accounts of Wilson’s life circulated in local newspapers during the 1840s and 1850s. Many celebrated him as a self-taught genius.

Hawkshead Grammar School One anonymous contributor to the Kendal Mercury recalled how ‘Black Jack’ used to help the boys of Hawkshead Grammar School with their homework. “Many an honest shilling,” we read, “did Jack earn, by solving for the puzzled students their difficult mathematical questions.”

We are not told whether William Wordsworth or his brothers (who were also Hawkshead schoolboys) were among Wilson’s pupils, but it’s certainly possible that they crossed paths.

Yet, Wilson has been forgotten. For all the curiosity his ingenuity attracted in the decades after his death, his life has scarcely cast a ripple in histories of our county. The John Wilson most readily associated with Cumbria today is the Scottish writer and literary critic better known by the pseudonym Christopher North (1785–1854).

As this is Black History Month, though, it seems an apt occasion to recover Wilson from obscurity. Much about his life still remains to be discovered, and I hope to be able to fill in a few more gaps as I continue my research. His story is important. It invites us to look at Cumbria’s past with fresh eyes.